Sunday, May 29, 2016

May The Ghost of Harold Ramis Grant A You Slow, Painful Death

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that, unless my editor puts a gun to my head and demands that I review it, I'll be skipping the Ghostbusters remake.

Yeah, I know. My refusal to see this movie means that I'm a misogynist asshole who can't stand the thought of four women replacing the males leads in a movie that's meant to replace a movie I've loved since I was a kid. I know. I'm just another angry, spoiled, overly-opinionated white man. You fuckers at Sony keep telling yourselves that.

Truth is, I might be a misogynist. That would explain why I'm still single. But I don't really have a problem with re-doing Ghostbusters with four female leads as long as it's done right. I truly believe cinema is in dire need of more strong female characters. Hollywood needs more woman directors and writers telling good female-centric stories. I had movie role models like Han Solo (R.I.P.) and Alex Rogan from The Last Starfighter growing up. I don't understand why girls can't have the same type of strong characters to look up to.

What I have a problem with and what Hollywood doesn't need is an ill-conceived, poorly-executed remake that would be shitty no matter what gender the leads are. That shit needs to stop.

But what I have a problem with most is how GB 2016's director Paul Feig, studio big wig Amy Pascale, and the rest of the Sony douche crew have treated the original movie and its creators. It's clear Feig is clueless what made the original movie so great, since he's letting his actors play stupid stereotypes instead of actually acting. I mean, when the fuck is Melissa McCarthy gonna learn how to play any characters other than herself. That shit is old.

And Leslie Jones gets stuck with the "street-smart black person" cliche. How the hell can Feig go around calling others misogynist assholes when he won't even let the black woman in his movie be a scientist? How is that not a racial stereotype, Feig? It turns out you're as big an asshole as the rest of us.

Feig is oblivious to what made Ghostbusters a great movie because he's obsessed with watching the ladies develop ghostbusting tech (snore...) and he apparently thinks all the ghost in the movie need to look like rejected Scooby-Doo villains.

And Pascale obviously doesn't respect or give a shit about the original film, or she wouldn't have shit on Ivan Reitman as hard as she has. Reitman, who directed the original two films, was effectively frozen out of the new film to the point that his producer credit is essentially marquee only. If she cared about Ghostbusters as anything other than a financial asset, she wouldn't have turned it over to Feig after she heard his lame-ass pitch. If she respected Ghostbusters, she wouldn't ever have considered suing Bill Murray to squeeze a cameo out of him.

What the fuck, Amy? You don't get to threaten Bill Fucking Murray with litigation because you can't figure out any other way to sell your piece of shit movie. And you know it's shit, or you would be treating Bill Fucking Murray like an indentured servant. You know if you can't lure crowds with cameos from the original cast, your movie is gonna flop harder than Reggie Miller versus the Knicks. You know you're fucked. Proper fucked.

Wait. What if Harold Ramis died as a "fuck you" to Pascale...

So, that's it. I don't want to see Ghostbusters 2016 because I don't want to support assholes that would treat the creators of an absolute classic like feces-filled diapers. Fuck you, Paul Feig. Fuck you, Amy Pascale. Fuck you, Sony. You can call me a misogynist. You can call me a whiny, hate-filled white man. Considering the tirades Feig has been on since the first Ghostbusters trailer came out, your insults mean almost nothing. Feig is every bit as much of a whiny, hate-filled white man as I am.

And one last thought: If you want to avoid this kind of backlash that comes when fans of a property feel you're disrespecting something they love like a member of their own family, maybe you should look at hiring people who actually have some fucking love for the source material. It's a thought...